In her 2005 classification in Mammal Species of the World, Simmons listed the genera Cistugo and Lasionycteris in the Myotinae in addition to Myotis itself.

[3] However, molecular data indicate that Cistugo is distantly related to all other Vespertilionidae, so it was reclassified into its own family, the Cistugidae,[4] and that Lasionycteris belongs in the Vespertilioninae.

The species within this genus vary in size from very large to very small for vesper bats, with a single pair of mammary glands.

M. vivesi, and several members of the trawling bat ecomorph Leuconoe, have relatively large feet with long toes, and take small fish from the water surface (they also take insects).

[13][14] The Asian species Myotis latirostris falls outside the clade formed by these main groups, and has since been reclassified into a separate genus, Submyotodon, alongside several others.